Question
I am 18 years old, about 5ft 8in tall, 133 lbs, in graet athletic shape however, I have had severe joint pain for around 4-5 years now. I have had every test possible (blood test, cat scan, bone scan, MRI, Muscle biopsy, and went through physical therapy twice). The pain has only gotten worse over the years. The specialist I have been seeing has diagosied me with arthritis in my joints. To try to help with the pain she has given around 20 different kinds of medications that I have tried and proved no positive results over the years. The pain that I am having is extreme and numerous cracking in my joints, stiffness, unconfortable and constent pain, sometimes spasms. I really do not want to live off pills for the rest of my life. I want to find another way. I am hoping that mabye I will grow out of this. I do not understand why I have the pain because I am in amazing shape, I exercise everyday, I was a standout track and field athlete runner,also in soccer, baseball, swimming, and basketball and I even think I have good posture for my back. If you could offer any help, insight or suggestions to what I should or can do? Thank you so much.

Answer
I'm sorry you're in pain.  If you were diagnosed with osetoarthritis, it's not something you grow out of.  It often comes with aging, so you more grow _into_ it.  And, it's alarmingly early for you to have it.  Your doctor should be trying everything she can for it, and you need to work with her on it.  You have a serious disease - you just may be on medication for the rest of your life - no biggie these days.  In osteoarthritis, joints deteriorate and sometimes require replacement.  Meds may help put that time off as long as possible, which is a good thing!

If your doctor didn't take x-rays and find a narrowing of the open space in the joints causing pain, then she may have been using the "arthritis" term in a much broader sense.  Fibromyalgia (FM) falls under that broad description and can be incredibly frustrating to diagnose - it's usually a result of ruling everything else out.  It's also difficult to manage, often not responding to anti-inflammatories like Motrin or Celebrex.  One of the distinctive symptoms in FM is a "gelling" of the muscles when you've sat for a long time.  You go to get up and your muscles are sluggish and joints are slow.  It also causes an intolerance to exercise - way more pain after than usual and longer than usual.  Since regular, moderate exercise is part of the treatment for FM, you can see where this is pretty frustrating.  It's also possible that you have FM as well as another type of arthritis.  Not fair, but it happens.

Sounds like you really need to get back together with your doc and find out what she meant by "arthritis."  Then, together, you need to see what people are doing for your type of arthritis and find a combination that's best for you.  Not all of that involves "pills."  One medication I use for pain is a patch of Benzocaine, basically to numb the nerves in the area.  Regular, moderate exercise can help in a lot of conditions, including many forms of arthritis.   Good thing for you, you've already mastered the discipline in sports that you need to keep after the right exercise and to keep it up.